The first work party of the season and a good turnout – 14 in all. Our job was to rake and collect the long grass cut by Rob Hopkins in the fenced area at the end of the causeway that separates Stocker’s and Bury lakes.  For some reason Rob hadn’t cut as large an area as usual, so, for the first time in living memory, we finished the work party by midday.  This was the first work party since we moved our tools from Stocker’s House garage to the fishermen’s shed nearer Springwell Lane.  We still met at Stocker’s House, but the tools had to be loaded into the van during the week before.

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Jack Westbrook & Ian Watson repaired the fence we put up on the canal-side.  We replaced broken and missing fence rails and railed off the end which had allowed access to the reserve and to rubbish tippers.  3 hours well spent.

Ian Watson

A good-sized party worked on the land between the Uxbridge Road entrance and the River Colne.  Not everybody knew that this is part of our reserve.  The path not only gives access to the reserve but also to the Aquadrome and even the large Tesco store.  It is widely used and, as sadly you may expect from the Great British Public, heavily strewn with rubbish, plastic, glass, tins and my pet hate, little plastic bags of dog poo.  Why people go to the trouble of collecting their dog poo and then discarding the plastic bag as rubbish, I’ll never know.  Far better, in a nature reserve, to let the animal do its business off the path so that the first rain washes it back into the earth, whence all things cometh.  Plastic bags do not disintegrate but stay where they are as unhygienic eye-sores until somebody, like us, disposes of them. We also planted nearly 40 trees.  Alders, geans (wild cherries), silver birch and oak.  We’ve already planted about 50 trees there over the past 20 years.

Meanwhile, on the canal-side of the reserve, our expert hedge layerers, Julia & Phillip Davies and Ken Davies, were continuing the big job of layering the canal hedge we planted 10 years ago.   Our thanks not only to them but also to, Emma Brading, Russell Ball, Nigel Daley, Nllesh Dodia, Tony & Sheila Scott and Ian Watson.

We are thinking about continuing our rubbish clear-up at the next work party on 8 April and combining it with some membership recruitment, as so many people use the path.

Emma Brading

The weather was bright yet cool. So it was a busy Sunday working around Stocker’s and there were many visitors enjoying the ambience. The work party split into two groups. One group focussed on hedge layering along the canal side with Dawn, Julia and Phil leading this group and teaching some new members the intricacies of hedge layering. The other group worked on the causeway between Bury and Stocker’s Lakes removing saplings by the water’s edge along the reed bed. The removed saplings had their lateral branches taken off so that they could be used at a later date as stakes on the reserve. Apologies to the hedge layering group who worked through tea break due to a mis-communication by myself.  Rest assured, I have punished myself for such an oversight and I can only tentatively ask for forgiveness.

Many thanks to: Dawn Goodair, Julia Davies, Phil Davies, Eileen Petch, Nilesh Dodhia, Peter Ewer, Steve Cohen, Nigel Daley, Sarah Marriott, Tony and Sheila Lea.

Nigel Daley